an email today from Rani (she says she's reading Octavio Paz):

He is after the "real reality", because Poetry and love both, are a central part of something we call our Soul.

"God taught me how to kiss," Rani said. She tipped her hand back and the silver pills spilled into her mouth.

I wanted to save her. But she was my reflection. She never lied. I couldn't stay. I couldn't help her. Not now.

That knowledge hurt more than anything. I loved her. My deep and ancient sister. My heart.

I couldn't fight her war. The universe was too big, too recursive.

"Will you meet me in Heaven's Hollow?" I asked. "Next month, come back and let's go to the Boogie. I'll talk to that lady with you. Maybe she's real."

Yeah, just maybe. A nameless color spread in my mind as Rani smiled. Crazy woman--she was a monkey wrench in the works of an American milkshake. I scrunched my eyes shut and hugged the color that we'd once dreamed awake. A stray thought regarding the heat death of the sun slipped in then, and I wondered what sacrifice I'd give to keep my life.

"I'll be there, no matter what," she said.

We hugged, her arms like oak saplings around me.

"What would become of your heart if
there were no Sun in the universe?"
-- Paracelsus

"My photographs of God have almost faded away."
-- The Jesus & Mary Chain

Rani unravels a two-foot soft, red thread from her jeans and stretches it above her head, stretches it into the sky.

"Gavin, come look."

I stand with her, looking up, tracking the thread, seeing tiny wisps curling from the side, the thread rotating in her fingers, shifting the focus in my eyes from her right hand to the string's high point in her left. My eyes go fuzzy trying to keep up as she lifts and slowly twists the thread, stretching it. I'm aware of its elasticity, and its energy that stops her tug from going too far.

We stare amazed at this thread for several minutes then she laughs and stuffs it in her pocket.

Yesterday I got this email from a scrytchy-girl who reads my online journal.

I had written:

I want to become a sun around your darkness.
I am you.
You are me.


and she replied

Isn't breath amazing

and I realized those simple words are about breath. I mean, in a way I breathe in and out as I think or say them. In and out. What a neat connection.

a cocoon breaks open

everywhere sounds of the city
beneath everything, a need for love

I'm hanging out outside Loveland, a club a lot of younger people frequent, bad kid written in thick marker on the cracked pavement outside, little-happy faced spermy creatures with eyes of hearts etched as grafitti on the warehouse walls.

in time of doubt keep a small meteorite stone in your mouth.

Even the most desiccated cactus / issues a flower before dying